


The Burden of Immortality

by Hemlockconium



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: April Fools' Day, Gen, Immortality, Prank Wars, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-23 17:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18154733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hemlockconium/pseuds/Hemlockconium
Summary: Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom and war, approximately equivalent to the Greek goddess Athena. How does the goddess of war strategy and wisdom deal with rampant and mischievous teens?





	The Burden of Immortality

She’d gone by many names over the course of her long lifespan, and many titles as well. She had been a goddess, chief, healer, student, warrior, headmistress….Too many titles to count, too many names to remember. She had lived a thousand lifetimes, but three stood out above the rest.

She was born in a land of desert sands a few millennia before the coming of Christ, and there she was revered as a deity. They built shrines in her honour and carved statues in her image. They depicted her on their temple walls, always portraying her duality: woman and cat. To them, she was a protector, a warrior of the sun and moon sent to defend their lands, their pharaohs, and their gods. Her birth name, Bast, is still remembered to this day.

After a few hundred centuries, she grew bored of the sand and the heat and the bugs. She’d learned everything she could from the desert, and it was time for her to move on. She travelled North, following the coastline, and her knowledge grew. But decades of restless wandering had her craving a home again, so she found one. She found people like her who took her in and adopted her as one of their own. When they asked for her name, she decided she wanted a new one, and she became Athena.

She was used to having a big family, but this one took the term ‘dysfunctional’ to all new heights. The bickering was constant and the fighting was destructive, but she loved it, and she loved them even when she hated them. She got into her fair share of squabbles: she beat her Uncle Poseidon for control of Attica by creating an olive tree; she and Hera lost to Aphrodite when Paris chose love over wisdom and power; she was beaten by Arachne in a weaving competition; she did her best to protect Medusa from ever becoming a victim of men again, but she failed her…. Many battles, not all won. She became known by the mortals for many things: wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilisation, justice, strategic warfare, mathematics, crafts, and skill. She was worshipped across the lands. She was happy.

Until the restlessness took hold again.

She did not settle down for a long time after that. She witnessed the rise and fall of empires, even participated in one or two; she saw the chaos of war and the further chaos of life; she endured as the old gods were beaten off of their pedestals and forgotten; she felt her powers ebb as her worshippers died out; she watched with fascinated interest as she became nothing but myth and legend.

She eventually found a home again, somewhere that she’d never imagined that she would.

The Scottish countryside was quiet and sparsely populated, but most importantly, it never knew sweltering heat. She was staying with a family there, the McGonagalls. They were intelligent folk, possessing wisdom that went beyond knowledge. They recognized her for what she was, the first to do so it in centuries, and they offered her shelter and kindness, asking for nothing in return. This was not to be her home, though, merely a stepping stone.

She was hiking through the highlands when she found it. She’d known of its existence before this, she’d heard the stories, but to actually see it was another matter entirely.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was magnificent to behold, and she’d seen many magnificent things over the course of her lifetime, but none thus far had made her feel like this. Her feet were carrying her toward the large gate with its winged boars before she could fully comprehend it. She couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to. It felt like invisible strings had wrapped around her heart and soul and were pulling her toward the impressive castle. Her feet knew where to go, even if she did not, and she found herself standing outside an office, and a tall man in a three-piece suit with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes was shaking her hand.

“I take it that you’re here to apply for the Transfiguration Professor position,” he said with a bright smile. “My name’s Albus Dumbledore, I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

He was looking at her expectantly, waiting for a name. Who would she be this time?

“Minerva McGonagall,” she said on a whim. The Romans had given her the name Minerva, she hadn’t liked it much at the time, but it had grown on her since. As for McGonagall… surnames were a mortal tradition in many parts of the world, they symbolized belonging, and the McGonagalls were good people, it would be an honour to belong with them.

“Well, come on in, Minerva, let’s see what you can do.”

He was very impressed by what he saw, as was the school’s headmaster, and she was offered the job on the spot. It was an odd experience, having a job. She was used to having roles and responsibilities and missions, but to have on top of those a schedule, and a curriculum, and a paycheck made the experience very different.

She was an excellent teacher, she always had been, and she prided herself on that, but the students who came through Hogwarts had a magic that was different from hers, and to adapt her teachings to them proved difficult. It was Albus who came up with a solution. He was a smart man, cleverer than most, and he suggested that she walk a mile in the students’ shoes so as to better understand them. She thought it was a brilliant idea, and took it a step further by de-ageing herself and becoming an actual student. The McGonagalls had a son, Robert, who’d married a witch named Isobel, and they agreed to become her parents despite being several millennia younger than her.

She learned a lot during her seven years as a student, and she became a better teacher because of it, but nothing could have prepared her for what was to come.

“It was the Weasley twins, Professor, I’m sure of it,” said the irate caretaker.

“Yes, alright, Mr. Filch, I’ll look into it,” she said, feeling just as irate.

“They’re menaces. I keep telling the headmaster, if he’d just let me do the old punishments, there wouldn’t be a brat out of line in this school, that’s what I tell him.”

Argus Filch’s deepest fantasy was to have a dungeon full of students hanging from the ceiling by their toes. It truly did attest to his character, and she’d learned to block him out years ago.

The infraction he was referencing this time around had something to do with Dungbombs in his office, which explained the smell that was currently assaulting her nostrils. As was often the case, he was blaming it on the Weasley twins. This wasn’t much of a stretch as they were usually the culprits. She’d taught a number of Weasleys during her time at Hogwarts, including the twins’ three older brothers, and upon calling Fred and George’s names for the Sorting Ceremony, she’d been expecting the same calm nature and quiet intelligence as she’d encountered with the rest of their family. Her assumptions were proven false fairly quickly when she’d called for ‘Weasley, Fred’ and a red-headed boy had run forth – only for the Sorting Hat to inform her that it was not sitting on the head of one ‘Weasley, Fred’, but of one ‘Weasley, George’. Her hope that that bout of trickery had been a one-off was displaced again and again over the next few months.

Their first week at school, they charmed everyone’s robes pink; a fortnight later everyone’s hair was green. The second week of October, they charmed every statue in the school to scream, non-stop, and there were a lot of statues littered around the castle. On Halloween, every pumpkin in the Great Hall exploded, covering everyone with pumpkin innards. The first Quidditch match of the season was marred by the fact that everyone stayed stuck to the stadium benches until dinnertime, be it by use of magic or very potent glue, she wasn’t sure. The entirety of December was spent listening to rude Christmas carols that the portraits couldn’t stop singing no matter how hard they tried. January was looking calm, until the boys got their hands on some fireworks and decided that the best place to set them off was indoors. February saw Professor Snape’s classroom flooded with bubbles, while Professor Flitwick’s was stuffed with balloons, and March had the twins discovering the joys of Dungbombs.

She was at the end of her tether. She had known actual trickster gods who were better behaved than those two: Eris had started the Trojan War, but she was easier to handle; Hermes was a troublemaker, through and through, but he’d never convinced a poltergeist to wreak every single suit of armour in a castle; Atë was a goddess of mischief, but even she could have learned a thing or two from the Weasley twins.

Filch was correct, they were menaces – talented, creative, intelligent menaces. She was impressed, despite herself, at the level of skill and dedication that they put into their pranks. But regardless of the on occasion amusing nature of their shenanigans, they were creating discord, and Filch would not stop badgering her about it. Something had to be done.

April Fool’s Day was just around the corner, and she got the feeling that Fred and George were planning something big. This annual Western celebration commemorated on April 1st by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes was unfamiliar to her in that she’d never paid it much mind, but this year would be different. This year she had to pay attention, because if the twins got away with whatever they had planned, not only would she never hear the end of it from Filch, but it would give the boys an unnecessary confidence boost that they might use to become even more troublesome than they already were.

So as April rolled around, bringing with it the start of spring, she did not let her attention wander to the outdoors where the flowers were blossoming, and the birds were singing, and nature was doing as nature does during its months of rebirth when Persephone grudgingly leaves her husband’s side to frolic around the planet growing daisies and whatnot.

She kept her focus on the twins, keeping an eye out for anything running amok. They must have known she was onto them, though, because they were acting completely out of character: they didn’t disrupt any of their classes; didn’t start any food fights during breakfast or lunch; didn’t give Filch a single reason to throw them dirty looks, although that didn’t stop him. They were always exactly where they were meant to be, neither sneaked off to places unknown, neither asked to be excused during lessons, they did not share a single chaos-filled look at any moment of the day. They were acting like perfect students, and that was far more worrisome than all of the Dungbombs that Zonko’s Joke Shop had to offer.

She felt the paranoia leak into her nerves as her senses were flooded with the keen over-awareness usually only reserved for the battlefield. This was not war but it may well have been, and she suddenly understood Filch a little better, which was not to say that she had a sudden urge to hang students by their toes.

The classes ended at 5 o’clock and still all was well. But she was reminded of the calm before the storm, when the waters were almost too still, and when she could feel the energy building around her. Zeus and Poseidon’s arguments were legendary, and she and the rest of the Olympians had always been able to predict when one was coming by the static in the air and the lack of waves beating against the shore. It was a sure sign to take cover somewhere where they could watch the glorious battle from afar.

She lowered herself to stalking the poor boys. Disguised as a cat she followed them after their last class of the day, watched as they played an innocent game of cards outside, stuck to the shadows when they came back in for dinner. Nothing was amiss. She expected at least a small explosion during mealtime, but there was none. She was no longer the only one on edge, the twins had been quick to gain a reputation, and now everyone in the Great Hall kept casting them nervous glances, waiting for them to do something. Anything.

They left the Great Hall with the other Gryffindor boys in their year, and they went to bed at a reasonable time, and she decided that perhaps they’d grown tired of doing the expected. The nervousness of their classmates and teachers proved that their reputation was already well-cemented, there was no need for them to fight tooth and nail to maintain it, therefore there was no need for grand gestures, nor to keep up with traditions.

She went to bed content with that reasoning, little did she know that that was all that the little hooligans had been waiting for.

The screams woke her, and she shot out of bed, wand in hand prepared to battle whatever dark force had infiltrated her school intent on harming her students, before she could register anything else.

Slowly, though, the external information streamed in: first the bright glare of the sun, then the grass beneath her feet, and finally the thousands of mattresses spread out over the school grounds and the equal number of students scattered between them.

She lowered her wand and immediately found the Weasley twins, sitting on the castle steps by the front door, the only two people not in their nightwear, cackling. Somehow they had managed to levitate every single occupied mattress in the castle outside, without waking said occupants. They had infiltrated every single one of the dorms, bypassing passwords, locks, and concealment charms, and they had not limited themselves to only the students: all of the teachers were here – and she hadn’t needed to know that Albus slept in the nude – as well as Filch, Madam Pomfrey, and Madam Pince. It shouldn’t have been possible, and yet they’d done it, but how?

She marched toward them, throwing a withering look at the ‘Happy April Fool’s Day’ sign hanging above the front door.

“Good morning, Professor,” said one.

“Did you sleep well?” asked the other.

She peered down at them with her most intimidating glare, it was a look capable of making armies turn tail and run, but they only grinned impishly. “Do you care to explain yourselves?”

“We’re not the ones who slept outside all night,” said one.

“We’ve been tucked away in bed, inside, where we belong,” said the other.

“Odd how you’re the only two to not have woken up outside,” she said.

“Pure coincidence.”

“Could have happened to anyone.”

“May I ask how you achieved this feat?” she asked.

“You may, but a magician never reveals his tricks.”

“A hypothetical magician, of course.”

“Of course,” she repeated.

She’d been outmanoeuvred, and although she may never know how, the very fact that they’d managed it was a surprise, and not an unpleasant one at that. She’d lost battles before, but never to a couple of pre-teens, and she was impressed. Eternity could be so dull, finding a challenge was cause for celebration, so as Filch berated the two boys, she looked at them in a new light. She watched them grow over the next few years, watched them learn and evolve. She battled with them again, many times; she would sometimes win, but when she did, they learned from their mistakes, and she had to redouble her efforts if she hoped to defeat them once more. Over and over it went, until two became one.

Not all warriors make it out of a battle, this is fact, but never before had it affected her as deeply as when she saw the ghost of Fred Weasley’s last laugh etched onto his unmoving face, while George, his brother, his partner in crime, stood over him, shedding every tear he had in him. A bright light had been extinguished from the world, and she would be called a liar if she claimed she did not weep for it.

She realised that, throughout all those millennia, she’d been mistaken for her wisdom had not been as complete as she’d thought. The burden of immortality was not boredom, it was loss.


End file.
